New FPL Transfers Bournemouth Nathan Ake and Jermain Defoe

New FPL Transfers Bournemouth Nathan Ake and Jermain Defoe

Hello and welcome to New FPL Transfers Bournemouth Nathan Ake and Jermain Defoe. Cookie gets United’s latest additions, of course Init takes Everton and Matt has cherry picked Arsenal & City. And what about Kop I hear you ask? Well due to Liverpool’s insistence on writing apology letters rather than acquiring new players I’ve chosen Bournemouth! Why? I’m wondering that myself and should I come up with a worthwhile answer I’ll be sure to let you know. Enough about me, what about Bournemouth. This will be their 3rd straight season in the top flight finishing 16th in 2015/16 and 9th last season. They’ll certainly hope to continue on such a trajectory. To date they’ve added three players to their squad, spending a club record £20m on Nathan Ake who featured on loan for them last season. Sticking with former loan players they’ve also brought Jermain Defoe back to the club while they’ve also invested in goalkeeper Asmir Begovic. For now we’ll concentrate on the FPL prospects of Ake & Defoe.

Nathan Ake
Defender
FPL Price: £5.0m

Nathan Ake, remember him? Of course you do. How could we forget him after everyone got their knickers in a twist when Chelsea recalled him from his loan at Bournemouth last season. He was going to be a cheap route into the Chelsea defence, however he only featured twice towards the end of the season! Given some of the hysteria surrounding Ake (in FPL circles!) last season I was surprised to note that he only made 10 league appearances (two of which were cameos) for Bournemouth last season, he did however score three times during that period. He also helped Bournemouth pick up three clean sheets in his time on the south coast last season. Bournemouth’s defence certainly wasn’t their strong suit last year, only four teams conceded more goals! They will be hoping that the arrival of Ake and Asmir Begovic will help solidify a porous defence.

So what of his FPL prospects? Last season’s defensive stats are unlikely to inspire confidence and their opening fixtures are certainly a mixed bag. Relatively easy games against West Brom, Watford and Brighton are offset against more difficult games versus Arsenal, City and Everton. Perhaps the key to owning Ake is to identify someone who rotates well with him. The arrival of Ake could see club captain Simon Francis consigned to a place on the bench which would mean that Bournemouth’s likely back four are all priced at £5.0m. With new signing Jermain Defoe and last season’s hero Josh King vying for spot kick duties left back Charlie Daniels is unlikely to take any but he could yet prove a more enticing option than Ake.

Jermain Defoe
Forward
FPL Price: £8.0m

Modern day footballers are oft described as prima donnas and more often than not there is an element of justification to this but Jermain Defoe is undoubtedly one of the good guys. The time he spent with Bradley Lowery before the youngster sadly passed away means I and many others now hold Defoe in a much different light. But what about Defoe the footballer? He’s a goal scorer, nothing more nothing less. In total he has scored 198 goals in 535 league appearances. This will in fact be his second stint at Bournemouth having scored 18 times in 29 league appearances during a loan spell on the south coast back in 2000-01 when Bournemouth were in the 2nd Division which is now known as League One. It was so much easier when we had the 1st, 2nd, 3rd & 4th divisions! Many assumed his career was over when he moved to Toronto in 2014 but he was soon back in the Premier League with Sunderland where he scored 15 top flight goals in each of the last two seasons.

So what of his FPL prospects? I honestly can’t make up my mind! My initial reaction was that at £8.0m he’s too expensive to be played as your 3rd striker but having given it some thought I’m now not so sure. The general consensus when playing 3-4-3 is that our 3rd striker should be circa £6.0m – £7.0m (although I suspect that this consensus might very well change this season and the average 3rd striker could be priced at £10.m!) but these strikers more often than not are not overly reliable. Defoe on the other hand is reliable and could easily finish up with 15 goals again this season and if your 3rd striker is picking up 15 goals you’ll do ok. Should things go well for both Bournemouth and Defoe there’s possibly an argument to be made for making him your 2nd striker but this is not something worth considering at this early stage and with so many big hitters available up top this season it’s probably just a pipe dream. For now I certainly wouldn’t be concerned to see Defoe as a 3rd striker in a RMT!!

Thanks for reading New FPL Transfers Bournemouth Nathan Ake and Jermain Defoe . This article was written by Kop Warrior

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